


a life in your shape

by tsukiyams (orphan_account)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Childhood Friends, Hanahaki Disease, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Pining, Unrequited Love, sort of???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26138509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/tsukiyams
Summary: in which tadashi is a fool with flowers in his throat and kei, unknowingly, is the one who sows the seeds.[tsukkiyama week day 5: unrequited love/hanahaki]
Relationships: Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Comments: 9
Kudos: 32
Collections: TsukkiYama Week 2020





	a life in your shape

**Author's Note:**

> a submission for tsukkiyama week using the day 5 prompts of unrequited love and hanahaki 
> 
> if you dont know what hanahaki is its a fictional disease in which someone coughs up flowers when they experience unrequited love  
> if you’re sensitive to things like vomiting i would suggest skipping this one
> 
> title is from mitski’s strawberry blond

when kei leaves tadashi under the shade of the tree in order to get drinks, the grass where he was before is flattened.

they’re at some park they’ve been to a thousand times before. kei likes it because it’s familiar and quiet. tadashi likes it because kei does.

once tadashi is sure he’s out of eyeshot, he shuffles over and lays in the same patch of grass kei was in. it’s warm, and he can’t quite tell whether it’s left over from kei’s body heat or just from the sun. 

he pretends it’s the former, pretends as if the grass is kei’s pale skin pressed flush against him. 

skin contact isn’t exactly something common between them, so imagining is all tadashi can do without the risk of throwing off the delicate equilibrium they share.

he thinks of what it would be like if the metaphorical wall between them was flimsy enough to tear. to reach through, and touch soft flesh, and card fingers through blonde hair. to whisper three words and hear them back in a quiet echo.

when he feels the familiar tickle of petals in his throat, he is reminded that the wall is made of glass and not paper. if he punches through it, he will have nothing to show for it but shards lodged into bleeding knuckles. 

so instead he watches through the polished glass, and lives for the rare, fleeting moments when kei watches back.

it’s enough, most of the time.

tadashi can’t help but laugh a little at how pathetic it all is. kei would definitely call him lame if he knew. 

he wouldn’t be wrong.

even still, he stays there, in the space kei carved out in the grass. he twines blades around his fingers or rips out handfuls and throws them away.

by the time kei comes back, tadashi’s hands are stained green. he uses the bottle of water kei gives him to wash the stains instead of drinking it, even though his mouth feels like a desert. it’s okay, because if his own drink is gone then he has an excuse to borrow kei’s, and god, tadashi feels like a fucking creep.

“you took my spot.” 

honestly, tadashi was sort of hoping he wouldn’t notice. because it’s odd. all the grass is the same, and there is no reasonable explanation for wanting to move to the spot kei once was.

“i was...keeping it warm for you?” he tries with a sheepish grin, before moving out of the way. 

kei gives a small hum of acknowledgement, settling back into the space he was in before, resting his head on the ground.

the loose grass blades tadashi had ripped out have somehow already made their way into kei’s hair. 

it elicits something warm in tadashi, something like nostalgia. 

mostly it reminds him of distant summers. practicing outside with kei when the both of them were still new to volleyball, flecks of dirt on their faces and arms blazing red from the force of the ball. 

sometimes grass or leaves would get caught in kei’s hair, and tadashi would get the all-consuming urge to reach up and brush them away.

he never did.

but he considers what may have happened if he did.

for all tadashi’s motivation, he enjoys living in the past. sometimes he’ll retread the crystal clear memories, wonder what it would have been like if he’d done things differently. 

walked just an inch closer. let his hands linger for just a second longer. been a little more brave. 

maybe there wouldn’t be so much space between them now. 

maybe he could fill his lungs with oxygen and not feel the gentle rustling of flora creeping up his throat. 

oh well.

he’s okay with this. just looking. just dreaming. 

kei’s hair has gotten longer since he started high school, and tadashi wants to offer to cut it just so he has an excuse to touch his hair.

on the other hand, though, he doesn’t want to. he thinks it looks nicer like this. sunlight streams through the leaves and kei’s hair catches the golden rays.

it looks sort of like a halo. tadashi half expects for kei to admit someday that he was an angel this whole time. it wouldn’t even surprise him.

there’s a buzzing, and tadashi thinks for a second that it might be a bug, but then kei pulls out his phone.

“who is it,” tadashi asks, even though he already knows the answer, and doesn’t actually want to hear it all that much. 

“it’s kuroo.” 

kei’s voice is level as it always is, never betraying any emotion, but tadashi knows better. 

“he’s helping me pick a university.” 

the words make him feel just a slight hint of nausea, and somewhere in an ugly, bitter part of tadashi’s brain, he remembers the first sleepover they had. 

they were twelve, and kei had called tadashi his best friend for the first time.

it was in the middle of the night, and tadashi couldn’t contain his tears of joy. 

amidst his blubbering, he asked if he and kei could stay friends forever; to go to the same high school and maybe, tsukki, even the same university.

kei said yes.

he said yes, but five years later none of their choices match up, and while tadashi isn’t above following kei to university, it’s fairly obvious that kei doesn’t want him to. 

“i might choose the same one kuroo is going to.” 

of course. 

kei hasn’t said, not out loud, that he is in love with kuroo tetsurou. but tadashi knows. 

he sees it in the tender smiles, the willingness to travel hours by train, the kind of proactiveness kei rarely shows. 

he sees it in the late-night phone calls that used to belong to tadashi.

he sees it all in eye-searing high definition, and it makes tadashi feel ten years old again, weedy and tiny and chasing the back of a boy who was always just so slightly out of reach.

except this time is worse, because it feels like he’s already been left in the dust. 

he wishes he could grab onto the memories and the glances and the time they spend together and keep it with him forever, but time stops for no one. 

especially not tadashi.

still though, he keeps trying, keeps trying to trap it, to keep it in his grasp. maybe kei is already gone. but still, he tries. 

“he has a boyfriend already.” 

this, tadashi knows. he fuzzily remembers the face of hinata’s friend kenma from nekoma. kuroo was obviously head over heels for him. 

guiltily, he takes pleasure in the fact that kuroo will never love kei back.

sometimes he wishes kei was the type to show more emotion over these things. he could be kei’s shoulder to cry on, nurse him back to health, tell him that he understands. 

he knows kei better than anyone else, and he wishes kei gave him an opportunity to show it, show how much better he is, show how perfect they could be. 

they could be so happy, which is why tadashi doesn’t give up. he can’t.

someday, kei will see. someday. 

he turns to look at the blond and his eyebrows are knitted though his face stays neutral. he’s trying not to cry. 

tadashi feels a rising in his throat. when the petals bubble up to the surface, he swallows them down without hesitation. 

it’s sort of gross, but the good thing about blossoms is that they’re small, and fragile. swallowing them back is easy. if the flowers weren’t strawberry blossoms, if they were something bigger, he’d be in trouble.

small mercies, tadashi supposes. 

still he chokes a little on them, and hopes that kei doesn’t notice.

the first time this had happened, they were in akiteru’s car. 

he’d driven them to one of those pick-your-own-strawberries farms as a treat, and it was there, with his fingers stained red and glasses fogged from summer heat, that tadashi had realised he was in love with kei. 

on the drive home, he’d coughed up his first flower. it fell into his lap, a few petals missing and slightly crushed. 

when kei glanced at it and asked what it was, tadashi lied that he’d picked a few of the leftover blossoms from the strawberry patches.

if kei didn’t believe him, he didn’t make it known. 

the next day, he’d woken up to a pile of strawberry blossoms, lying in a damp patch on his pillow.

that is what most of his mornings have become, since this all started. 

thanks to this, they can’t even have sleepovers anymore, because tadashi is terrified that he will dirty kei’s pillows with blood and tattered petals. 

maybe that didn’t help in the whole ‘staying close’ thing. maybe if this had never happened, if he’d never realised he was in love and gotten this damned disease, they could have stayed close. could have fallen in love together. it feels bitterly ironic.

“don’t worry, tsukki. there are plenty of fish in the sea. not just catfish.” 

he laughs at his own mediocre pun in an attempt to ignore the fact that he really should be practicing what he preaches. 

kei just sighs and casts his eyes to the sky, squinting at the sunbeams.

“it’s not that simple, yamaguchi.” 

there are plenty of fish in the sea, but sometimes you only want one. tadashi understands this. to make moving on sound so easy is astonishingly hypocritical.

“yes it is,” tadashi replies, just to be annoying. 

“what would you know about it?” 

what would tadashi know? 

nothing, as far as kei is concerned. 

he’s equal parts glad that kei doesn’t suspect a thing, and completely devastated that he doesn’t pay enough attention to tadashi to have figured it out.

glass half empty, glass half full. 

he wishes he had the willpower to just tip the whole damn thing down the sink.

but he won’t. 

instead he will smile in kei’s face, and swallow down more blossoms, and ache, ache, _ache._

“i guess i don’t know,” he lies through his teeth, through the flowers in the back of his throat, “i’m sorry.”

once again, kei hums in acknowledgement, but this time there’s a crack in the little noise. it’s slightly pained, but you’d never notice it. not unless you were tadashi, who notices every quirk, abnormality, and minute detail.

looking back down at the grass, he sees little flower heads peeking out from between the blades. 

he remembers that when they were young, he sometimes used to chain daisies together carefully and place them around kei’s neck when he seemed sad.

kei would often complain that it was stupid and embarrassing, but even so, he’d wear it til it wilted every time.

so, tadashi decides to make kei a crown of daisies to cheer him up. 

though it probably won’t cheer him up, because kei thinks that kind of thing is childish. maybe it’s just an excuse and tadashi is really only doing it for himself. to feel like they’re living better days, like they’re still the best of friends and everything is okay.

things haven’t been okay for years, after all. 

as tadashi tries to string the little daisies together, he ends up accidentally splitting some of the stems. his fingers are clumsy around the fragile things, he really hasn’t done this in a long time.

eventually he manages it, though.

however, when he places the flimsy thing on kei’s blond curls and shuffles back to see how it looks, he can’t shake the thought that it feels like a cheap imitation of their childhood.

the image feels like it’s grabbing tadashi by his collar and telling him to _grow the fuck up._

_things will never be the same. you can never go back to being twelve again, you stupid, stupid fucking fool._

and despite all that, kei looks beautiful. 

his face is impassive, brown eyes blinking. there’s sunlight on the edges of his glasses and his cheeks are reddened from the sun. the flowers look so, so lovely in his hair, like a woodland spirit or a fairy.

 _and he’s not yours._

maybe he was, at one fleeting moment in the past. on a summer’s day that feels a million years ago, or during a volleyball game where their hands touch in an adrenaline fuelled high-five.

maybe, but not anymore. 

tadashi feels like he’s grasping at air just trying to drag kei back. everytime he feels he might have a hold, he just gets further away.

still, he tries.

when they part ways, kei kisses him. 

he does this every so often. 

tadashi doesn’t know why. they never, ever mention it.

it’s not got much passion in it. just a press of lips. 

maybe when kei closes his eyes he imagines black hair and a catlike smirk. maybe he doesn’t imagine anything and just wants something warm to touch.

either way, it’s always initiated by kei. tadashi would never have the courage to kiss him first. he figures kei probably wouldn’t let him anyway.

it’s only ever kei who does it, because he’s in control of their equilibrium.

it’s mostly tadashi’s fault that he is. thanks to his passiveness, kei knows full well that the freckled boy would let him do anything and still stay by his side.

this dynamic has lead to the general setup of kei acting and tadashi following. it’s okay. he doesn’t mind.

he figures may as well make the most of these kisses anyway, since it was the extent of the physical contact they shared.

when it started, they were sixteen. kei had kissed him briefly while they were studying in his room. 

it was half a second at best, but when tadashi’s eyes cracked open, kei’s face was burning from under his glasses. 

the shorter boy was breathless and elated, and he couldn’t help the smile that split across his face or the butterflies that swarmed in his chest.

tadashi said a moment later that it was his first kiss, and kei gave a quiet mumble in response that may have been ‘me too’. it was the first and last time they’d ever talked about it.

after that first kiss, tadashi hoped the flowers would disappear. 

but they didn’t.

and by the hundredth kiss, he stopped expecting them to. 

when kei pulls away, he looks at tadashi for a few seconds. 

“yamaguchi,”

the name sounds like heaven coming from kei’s mouth. his voice is quiet, but still makes tadashi’s heart thrum with longing, with love, with nerves, with _hope._

“see you.” kei finishes, pulling on his headphones and leaving tadashi outside on his front porch. 

and with that, he plummets back down to earth.

“see you, tsukki.” he replies, voice weak and deteriorating.

tadashi watches his retreating back like always. maybe it’s in the hopes that he’ll see kei look back.

he never does. 

when he stops for a second, tadashi thinks he might. but then he sees kei take off the daisy crown on his head and place it gingerly on the nearby grass before continuing to walk away.

of course not.

when his figure disappears into the peach-hued horizon, tadashi finally, finally, lets himself retch. 

the strawberry blossoms rush out like water, spilling onto the ground beneath him. everytime he thinks it’s done, more and more starts to come.

they would be beautiful, if they weren’t utterly disgusting. 

slick with saliva and flecks of blood, but that’s not what makes them repulsive.

it’s the fact that they stare back at tadashi, teary-eyed from the gagging, every inch of him hurting with want and heartbreak, and say, _look at us. look how hopeless this is. look at what you’re doing to yourself. look how much he doesn’t love you._

he can no longer tell which tears are from despair and which are from choking.

it’s all the same anyway.

“tadashi?” 

his mother is stood in the doorway, concern etched into a soft, freckled face. she’s seen this sight too many times to count.

he can’t speak, because he’s still vomiting. the pile of flowers outside their house is definitely going to be a sight.

usually, he can hold it until he gets inside.

he silently apologises to his mum through the rushing of blood in his ears. 

when the damned flowers finally take pity on him and stop, he gasps for breath and wipes his mouth, turning to look at his mother. 

“hey,” he croaks.

“this isn’t good for you.” 

well. tadashi knows that much. 

as far as his actual health goes, it would be much better to just get surgery while he still can. save himself, and live happily.

there’s something holding tadashi back from doing that, though. 

[it’s hope. of course it is.] 

“it’s been five years, tadashi. you can’t keep doing this.” 

he begs to differ. he can keep doing this, and he will. 

as long as he’s alive, there’s a chance of kei someday loving him. tadashi doesn’t want to miss his chance. the perfect fairytale future they could share if he’s just patient.

besides, he would rather die suffocating on his affection, throat rubbed raw and voice in shambles, than stop adoring tsukishima kei.

despite all the pain, the fatigue, the hopelessness. he loves to be in love with him, to remain in this lonesome heaven.

nothing makes him feel more alive.

though sometimes, in rare moments, his mother’s offers to take him to hospital will sound inviting. he’ll crave the relief of a clear throat and the freedom of no longer being painfully devoted to someone who’ll never feel the same.

but kei likes to give him new reasons to hope.

it’s always something small. kei will invite him out, like today. or he’ll give him some candy. or he’ll pay tadashi a vague compliment.

small, but enough to stake tadashi’s flame just before it burns out. it blazes passionately once again from even the slightest glance, the tiniest scrap of affection.

he receives an inch, takes a mile. 

his mother looks at him with pity in her eyes. maybe it’s deserved, but tadashi doesn’t think so. he isn’t pitiful. he’s just in love.

before tadashi settles into bed, he receives a text.

[from: tsukki]  
i’m going to start driving lessons soon. maybe next summer we can go on a road trip or something.

another inch. kei is being liberal with them today.

he knows it doesn’t mean anything.

even so, when tadashi drifts asleep, he does so with his imagination swarming with possibilities.

kei and him singing together in the car.

kei still looking angelic even under the fluorescent light of a gas station shop.

kei and him stuck in a shitty motel with only one bed.

kei driving in the early, early hours of the morning, birds chirping and wind rushing in through the windows, tadashi slipping in and out of consciousness. maybe kei would do everything in his power not to wake tadashi up.

he imagines the burn of alcohol and caution thrown to the wind and a rushed confession and the long years of waiting and loving and yearning finally paying off.

a thousand different fantasies play behind tadashi’s eyelids, and before he succumbs to sleep, he thinks that maybe today is the day.

maybe the kiss was different this time.

maybe on their roadtrip kei is planning to confess. after all, if anyone would plan something a year in advance it would be him.

maybe tomorrow tadashi will wake up to nothing but oxygen and the sun’s welcoming beams and he’ll know, he’ll know that finally everything was worth it.

maybe the last of the flowers are sitting on a pile in his front porch. maybe this is the end.

[it’s not.]

[tomorrow, tadashi will be woken up by his own coughing fit like always, tiny white petals being hacked up from his lungs.]

[tomorrow, kei will apologise and tell him that the text was meant for somebody else.]

[tomorrow, he will immediately know who that somebody else was, and despite himself, he will feel glad, because at least kei is in the same sinking boat as him.]

[tomorrow, he will remember that having kei is nothing but a pipe dream right now.]

[oh well.] 

[maybe someday it’ll be different.]

[maybe.]

[maybe.]

_[maybe.]_

**Author's Note:**

> heart 💕 been broke 💔 so many times ⏰ i 👁 dont know 🤷♀️ what to believe 😔 mama 👩🦰 says 🗣 it’s my fault 😭 its my fault ✌️ i wear my heart 💘 on my sleeve 🤳
> 
> sorry  
> thank you for reading  
> pls leave kudos if u enjoyed 💕💕


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